Transportation in Burkina

Getting around in BF can be a pretty wild ride. Its mostly done with small Peugeot pickups. They are rigged with a huge cage over the bed, and can carry ridiculous amounts of goods (corn, millet, goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys, and people.) You name it, they can find a place for it, or just tie it on somewhere. It is not uncommon to find yourself having to hold a few chickens in your lap, with a goat on one side, and a mother breast feeding a two year old on the other. They usually jack up the struts super strong to carry huge loads to make a little more money each trip. Last month I was sitting in the back of one of these little bush taxi's next to a huge bull; it was tied up of course. Its legs were bound together and horns lashed to the frame, basically in the fetal position and its owner was sitting on him. He seemed pretty relaxed all tied up like that, and had no idea that in a few hours he would be someones' dinner. I was constantly thinking what would happen if the ropes came loose and he decided to get a little rowdy. Those huge horns of his could do some pretty good damage and a shift in his weight could easily overturn the tiny top heavy Peugeot. But the ride was uneventful and everyone arrived safely, that trip.

Two weeks after I was taking the same bush taxi into Bobo, and we were way over loaded this time with huge sacks of corn. This time I sat in the cab. It was so full that people were hanging off the sides with their random bags and produce tied on top. Then we picked up two small girls with their baskets of fresh tomatoes to sell at the market in Bobo. I have learned that transport in Burkina can never ever be completely full, there is always more room. Their was no space for the girls in back, so they climbed on top of the cab and held their baskets in their laps. As we descended a little too quickly down a small hill our back right tire fell off. The weight from the ridiculous load had cut all 5 of the lug nuts that connect the rim to the hub. When our tire fell off we obviously came to a pretty quick stop, and the girls on top, obeying newtons' law of objects in motion, went flying off the truck. The tire that broke off went zinging by their heads as they rolled into the ditch. Tomatoes were everywhere and the rest of the passengers were pretty shook up. I was fine in the cab, with the driver and others laughing at the girls. It wasn't all that funny to me, seeing that they could have easily been run over, and a summers worth of tomatoes smashed on the ground is not very easily explained to parents. The driver took off one of the bikes sent one of the boys to get new lug nuts in the next village. It took about 2 hours and three jacks to get the truck up high enough to put the tire back on. While all this was happening I sat in the shade under a mango tree and got through a few chapters of my book. Transportation, like all things in Burkina is an adventure.